Today's Roast: A Study of Sumatran "Iskander"

This is another study, this time of the Sumatran. Unlike my first study, the roasts did not take place sequentially, but I am grouping them together by bean so that I can more easily access the information when I want it. The intent of this journal is to be able to look backwards and say "yes, this is a good way to roast this bean" or "no I tried that before and it sucked". And I think it is better to order by the bean because in the end I am interested in the bean.

August 6, 2006

I programmed a Sweet Maria's roast for 10:00 (which means I tacked extra time to the third stage). The first crack came at -3:20 and, as usual with Sumatrans, I was unable to identify the second crack. I stopped the roast at -:30. The roast was darker than I had wanted but not by any means burned.

August 20, 2006

Today I programmed a straight Sweet Maria's roast, which is to say the total roast time was the same 9:30 minutes as in the original Sweet Maria's curve. The first crack came in at -3:22 and lasted until about -2:00. I stopped the roast at -:30.

I think I detected a second crack at about -:50. I am not 100% sure, because it was very quiet, even for a second crack. (Even a typically audible second crack sounds muted compared to first.) This may be my problem with detecting the second crack in Sumatrans. Between the roaster itself (which is noisy) and the overhead fan (which adds to the din), it might be that the Sumatrans have a quiet second crack that is just too subtle for my ears to hear.

Or, I could have imagined the second crack at -:50.